JUNE IS BUSTIN' OUT ALL OVER!

With apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein, I couldn't think of a better name for this post.

The plants are putting on a show with beautiful blossoms everywhere, whether in the wild or planted around my library as these are.

The background is kind of crappy here but I couldn't resist a snap of these floral beauties outside a medical laboratory this morning.

I have to give credit to a friend, the recently retired newspaper reporter in neighboring Prescott, Cindy Barks.

She is an inveterate hiker and traveler and shows her talent on her blog NearandFarAZ.

I saw her photos of wildflowers, cactus flowers and sunsets on Facebook this morning, inspiring me.

I'm too old to hike like her anymore so my pictures are mostly shot from my car window.

SUNDAY DINNER

Shrimp Piccata & Rotini Alfredo.

Accompanied by salted bread sticks (not shown) and Judy's latest fruit salad.

Strawberries, cantaloupe and pineapple sprinkled with Tajin Clasico seasoning.

Very tasty!

SAT-UR-DAY, SAT-UR-DAY . . .

This morning a new recipe from the Washington Post Food section sounded interesting so I tackled it.

This picture doesn't really do them justice because they look like cookies.

They're actually muffins.

Maple Oatmeal Muffins and they came out pretty well.

By that I mean they tasted great but I think they could have used an extra minute or two in the oven.

The blotches you see are dried cranberries, sometimes called Craisins.

It's a pretty easy recipe that incorporates some applesauce, cinnamon, a touch of ground cardamom and vanilla, along with the rolled oats and maple syrup.

Like I said, they turned out pretty good on a first attempt but the next time I make them I'd probably bake them a tad longer.

Happy weekend, friends!

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

It was a week like any other week.

Well, not really.

I mean we had several rainy days.

Or at least parts of some days.

The Dread Monsoon Season is not supposed to begin in my part of Arizona until July 4th, just in time to rain out parades, picnics and fireworks.

But like all climate related events these days, it seems to be arriving sooner.

I'm not sure what that holds for the summer season; whether it will be much hotter than usual or much wetter than usual.

But I'm not going to think about that anymore today.

I'm not going to think about anything anymore today.

I'm just going to be mildly amusing.

See what I mean:

There.

My work is over.

If you need any of them to be explained to you, just be patient and keep checking the comments.

Ofttimes, my readers are a lot quicker than I am.

Now I'm heading for the kitchen to see what I can mess up.

The rest of you, I trust, will have an astoundingly fine weekend.

You will if you always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . not to worry . . .  not in this house! . . . )

AN OLD NEW POST

 I was looking back into the archives of this blog to see if there might be something interesting that I could re-post and I found the post below from about ten years ago.

I thought of how the years have changed a lot of things, including the people who read this blog so I decided to run it again.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

BOOKIN'

This was a scene I encountered a week ago at a familiar location.

The folks at my local library were trying to clean out their overload of books by offering many of them for sale at bargain prices in a used book sale. The books were displayed just outside the front entrance of the library and local bibliophiles were having a great time perusing the collection and searching for good deals.

I had to prowl the piles of written material myself having had a lifelong love of books. Regular readers here may remember that SWMBO and I owned and ran a bookstore called BOOKENDS here for 7 years.

I was tempted numerous times by some of the titles but then I remembered our bookshelves at home with so many volumes waiting to be read.

And then SWMBO, noticing what I was doing, reminded me of the normally closed cabinet with the cookbooks!

By the time I got around to taking this picture, our curious big black cat, Blackwell, had discovered a new niche to be explored. I didn't notice him in there until I was editing the pictures.

Having taken this inventory, I am glad I refrained from buying any more books at the library book sale.

Sort of.

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While I didn't take note of it when I posted this originally, ten years ago, June 6th was my mother's birthday.

She, too, loved to read and maybe would have enjoyed looking through our book collection.

Regrettably she died in 1953, before we had accumulated this houseful, many of which are gone now, passed on to other readers.

CLOUDS

Yesterday was a rainy day, off and on, but the sky views were the treat.

There may be more today.

Great for cloud watchers.

FLOWER TIME

June arrived with hot weather but the past couple of days have been cooler, just right for Judy's "Spring" flower shopping and planting.

More flowers this year to make our patio bloom with color.

Not a moment too soon as the rain has come today.

In the trip home from the plant store, one blossom fell off but quickly found it's spot in a glass bottle top that was just the right size.

It's so nice to have an artist in the family to work with the artistry of Mother Nature.